Microsoft announced some new additions to Bing maps today. These additions, the company says, will benefit both developers and end-users.

The first addition is that of a software development kit for building Map apps for Bing Maps. "Bing Map Apps are web services that are being integrated as an application layer within Bing Maps," says Bing Maps Tech Evangelist Chris Pendleton. "With the release of the SDK, developers can now create their own map apps built on top of Bing Maps and hosted on bing.com/maps/explore."

That means we’re likely to see a lot of cool new ways to use Bing Maps. Microsoft has already been offering some interesting Bing Maps apps on its own. For example, Twitter Maps shows tweets from specific areas:

Microsoft has also released the following new features for Bing Maps:

1. Bing Map App Ratings
2. Photosynth Panoramas
3. Map Overlays
4. Action Bar
5. Reverse Address Lookup
6. Right-Click Menu
7. Full Screen Maps
8. Breadcrumb
9. Brandfinder

More details for each of these features can be found here.

Finally, the Bing Maps Platform is expanding its interfaces to include a REST API. This provides geocoding, maps, and routing capabilities. In addition, they’ve introduced a Spatial Data API for reverse geocoding locations in batches, giving developers the ability to do even more with apps based on Bing Maps.